


to give up a heart

by labocat



Category: The Magnus Archives (Podcast)
Genre: Other, Possessiveness, Season 2, eldritch creature courting, monster caretaking
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-11
Updated: 2020-02-11
Packaged: 2021-02-27 18:23:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,495
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22670143
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/labocat/pseuds/labocat
Summary: Jon gets used to the doors appearing when he works.
Relationships: Michael/Jonathan Sims
Comments: 20
Kudos: 229
Collections: Chocolate Box - Round 5





	to give up a heart

**Author's Note:**

  * For [quantumducky](https://archiveofourown.org/users/quantumducky/gifts).



The first time the door appeared, he was surprised. Full on head-whipping around, exclamation of surprise, looking for it with every glance Not Expecting It. He didn’t know why the Distortion would want to appear, would find his work interesting enough to watch or what it would want from the Institute that it didn’t get last time.

By the tenth time, Jon ignored the yellow door that appeared out of the corner of his eye. He knew that if he turned his head, it would disappear, would only come back when his guard was down and when Michael wanted to be known. He went on with recording his current statement, waiting until he couldn’t ignore the feeling in the back of his mind that there was a hand on his shoulder (wrong shape, wrong weight), breath on the back of his neck (too cold, too irregular), someone else in the room with him (he hadn’t heard anything) before he spun his chair around and faced what he had been ignoring (could never ignore).

“Hello, Archivist.”

Jon narrowed his eyes (as if squinting would help clarify Michael’s shape, as if there was a true shape to be known). “What are you doing here?”

“Not even a ‘hello’? Archivist, I’m hurt.”

A part of Jon piped up, curiosity overtaking concern ( _could_ Michael have feelings that could be hurt?), but he shook it off, continuing to stare at what should be Michael’s face, the times it decided to have one. “You’re the one who keeps popping up at my work unannounced; I’ve got a better case for affront than you at this point.”

Michael laughed at that, a sound that filled Jon’s ears like the cold of biting into an ice cream, the sharpness of a static shock. It jangled down his spine and as it settled into his bones, he was surprised to discover he didn’t dislike it.

“Well,” he said, turning back around to his desk, starting to fill out the form associated with the statement he’d just recorded and resolutely ignoring the way his stomach had started to flutter. “Are you going to stand there all day, or are you going to sit down?”

That static shock sound fell on him once more, but the next time he turned around, Michael had gone, door and all and strangest of all, he could feel a smile tugging his lips upward. 

~

“Don’t you have anything better to do?” Jon sipped absently at the mug of tea (long gone cold, curse it) as he turned to look at Michael out of the corner of his eye. He’d found it best to try and look at it askance, to stop before knowing its shape, or else he’d be in for a headache (worse than his normal ones). 

It had become a bit of a habit - Jon was getting better at identifying the exact feeling of _wrongness_ that preceded the door appearing within his office. He’d long since stopped wondering how the door even fit in his cramped office - Michael wouldn’t answer, and he knew he wouldn’t like the answer it would give him anyway. But he’d nod towards the empty chair and sometimes as he continued to work Michael’s shape would flicker in and out of his periphery. Sometimes the door would disappear again as soon as he acknowledged it, but more and more he found he had company as he worked (and more surprisingly, that he didn’t mind). He didn’t interrogate too closely that he saw (perceived) Michael more often than his assistants these days - it was almost a relief to have someone whose motives he _knew_ were in question, rather than the dance of trust and distrust he’d found himself in since discovering the tunnels.

“Time is a construct, Archivist. What is one day but the next as well? I have as much or as little time as I need.”

“Wouldn’t that be nice,” Jon muttered as he pulled another form towards him, barely even flinching at the feeling of a too-sharp touch across the back of his neck, brushing his hair off of his shoulders and gathering it at the back of his neck. “Don’t braid it.” The words were out of his mouth before he realized what they implied, the trust and intimacy at having Michael’s hands so near his neck, behind him and waiting and his not flinching from them. He held his breath.

“It would be nothing so mundane. Though it may stop your hair from growing. In this dimension at least.” It was impossible to tell tone in Michael’s voice, its inflection rising and falling like nothing Jon was used to - lilts in places there should be dips, making questions of statements and leaving Jon never sure of where they stood or what Michael was trying to communicate. He’d never considered himself _good_ at social graces like reading tone or body language, but with Michael, he felt lost in a land whose language he couldn’t read, with a map to a place that had never existed (and strangely okay with that).

“Can’t have that, then.” 

“No. A pity.” Jon’s breath rushed out of him, the tension leaving and in its wake a twisting thing in his stomach he couldn’t tell between relief or regret as he felt Michael stepping away, back into its corridors.

~

Jon found himself twisting his hair up and trying to get it to stay a few minutes after that and utterly unable to respond when Martin asked about it.

~

It was nothing so dramatic as the worms or even as many of the statements. It was almost to be expected, exploring the tunnels almost nightly at this point. Still, Jon _hadn’t_ been expecting it (stupid, stupid), which was how he’d found himself on the floor of the tunnels, the walls of which were closing in around him, his breaths growing shorter and shorter as he was overwhelmed.

As his consciousness flickered he thought a patch of wall seemed more yellow than the rest of the dirt closing in around on him. Perhaps it was just his mind trying to make sense of nothing, grasping at hope, and he laughed at himself that he would think of Michael - whom at best bore him no ill will and at worst, well. Who had no reason to come and rescue a wayward Archivist, no matter how many afternoons they’d shared (no matter how much he wanted it). He was a distraction for it, no matter its thoughts on time and filling it.

Then, suddenly, he could breathe, found himself gasping for it as shapes wrapped around him, unfolding from themselves in an endless cascade until he was secure, protected and pulled close to a Michael radiating an energy he’d never felt from it before. It crackled into the space around them, driving back the tunnels, sharp in a way that made Jon realize the times before had been _playful_ \- this was a sharpness honed, diving into weak spots and not retreating, forcing whatever it encountered into its shape and giving no quarter. 

“He is _mine_.” It took Jon longer than he would have liked to realize the words hissed into the darkness were uttered by Michael and about _him_. “You shall not touch him.” There was no response from the tunnels, just dirt falling in clumps as it formed back into a proper passage, but the pressure from before was gone and in the (relative) safety of Michael’s limbs, Jon let himself sink into unconsciousness.

When he came to, it was to the feeling of something combing through his hair.

“I told you not to braid it.” He tried sitting up, but between the hold Michael’s limbs (too long to be arms, looping twice and firm as iron bands) had on him and the dizziness that swamped him, he quickly laid back.

“I thought you didn’t like the Institute.” Trying to make sense of the goings-on he’d been thrown into was the only thing Jon still had, and this was coming up as the strangest yet.

“Oh, Archivist. Liking or not liking a stronghold of watchers is not the question. It is too early to end the game, and I am loathe to let you leave me so soon.” 

It was surprisingly warm in Michael’s embrace, and Jon knew he didn’t have the strength to leave so turned over instead, curling up within it. 

“I thought you wanted to kill me, at first,” he confessed, letting his eyes drift shut once more, trusting that Michael would take him back to his office, against every rational voice screaming tiredly in the back of his mind. But a deeper part of him believed he was safe, and would trust that for now.

“Oh, I do,” he heard as he slipped under, a soft, rare, smile on his face, followed by the feeling of lips against his forehead, soft as a human’s but somehow electric. “And perhaps, one day, you might even let me.”

**Author's Note:**

> Come find me on [twitter](twitter.com/labocat)!


End file.
